Happy New Year and welcome to 2013! Strangely, I'm not going
to start of this year with anything ranty or ragey (perhaps a first for me). No,
instead I wanted to reflect back on some of the positive changes I've noticed
in Moscow since 2005.
While the political scene is still just about as fucked as
it ever was, there have been some improvements on a life-convenience level,
most of which come thanks to the internet.
In the West we've been enjoying the great price and easy delivery
from giants like amazon and ebay for years, but Russia’s shitty postal service
and limited delivery options have always made life that touch harder. Sure, I know
Russians that order things from amazon and they even receive them, but then I've also heard plenty of tales of people ordering Ipads/phones, only to have themreplaced with stones.
Enjoy that new iphone...
When I order online, I want my stuff quickly and I want it
to actually reach me. I don’t want to fuck about with shitty customs or the even-shittier
post office. It’s not 1930, fuck the post office.
But, the good news is, most Russian retailers have a website
site (thanks, captain obvious) and offer home delivery.
Also, there are plenty
of online shops where you can find better deals. So these days, instead of
spending three hours on a round-trip to a store like M-video (Moscow is a big
place and getting around takes a while), I can order stuff online and get it delivered
to either work or home. No more wandering around shops having to deal with socially
retarded teenager sales goons who don’t even know what they’re talking about.
Yeah, I know, it’s not the birth of democracy, but it makes
my life easier, and thus, makes me happier. You see, for the past four years, I
have been overpaying for stuff, knowing that I'm overpaying for it. It’s like
coffee in Moscow, you’re getting fucked and you know it, so all you can do is
lube up.
you can really taste the18 dollars in this Moscow water
But, that’s changing too, for some things at least. One prime example is yandex market. For once, instead of copying everything Google does, Yandex has come up
with a few of its own ideas, my favourite of which is the aforementioned Yandex
market.
With a quick search, you can do a price comparison and find
the cheapest deal on a lot of different items. Not all stores and web shops are
hooked up to yandex market, but it still saves a lot of time and money.
You see, prices here can fluctuate massively from shop to
shop. For example, comparing my phone on yandex market, I got the cheapest deal
at 14500 roubles (about 500 bucks), whereas most places were selling for 17000,
right up to 20000+, check out the screenshot.
Another nice addition to the Russian landscape is improved online
banking. I shed a small tear inside when I think that for years I have been
physically going to the bank to pay bills and raging hard each time. Whether it’s
the rude babushkas, endlessly asking ‘kto poslednii’, the rampant queues or the
extra rude, slow and incompetent cashier, something about going to the bank
would piss me of each time.
But no more. Now, I just use my alfabank online account to
do all that shit for me. For fixed payments, instead of direct debit, I just
created a payment template and so things like phone and internet bill get paid automatically.
A lot of Russian banks are getting with it too; even the dinosaur of inefficiently Sberbank has an online service that is decent .
Funnily enough, only about 13 percent of Russians use online
banking since a lot of them simply don’t trust it (this is Russia after
all).
I asked one girl I know why she didn't want to try online banking and she
said “ I'm not a lazy person so I don’t mind going to the bank to pay my bills”.
Fuck that! Time is too precious to be spent establishing who
is next in line in a bank!
why pay online when
you could be enjoying all this?
Speaking of banks, another thing I noticed is that now,
there are an abundance of ATMs. While that might sound strange, years back I remember
many times being stuck without access to my precious cash. It was actually the
kind of problem that you had to get sorted in advance in case you got stuck
after the club with no hard currency for cab haggling/police bribing.
Now, they’re everywhere. Shit, alphabank even has a phone
app that uses gps to point you to your nearest ATM or bank branch (oh
technology, how I love you).
Lastly, more and more places are accepting credit cards. One
of the first lessons I learned here was that you should always have cash ready,
never relying on the pay-by-card option. While a fair few places still don’t
accept cards, even in the capital, life paying by card is now a lot easier, and
as a bonus, there’s always an ATM somewhere about, even if you do get stuck.
While I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting, that about
wraps it up. There’s still a way to go and man would it be good if I could use
my Russian card with my paypal account, but I’ll have to hold out on that one
for a while.
Another thing to keep in mind is that I've been writing
about Moscow here, if you head out to, say, Chelyabinsk, you’re probably going
to suffer more inconveniences than in the capital – that’s a no brainer.






6 comments:
Exactly what I was looking for. And I've been looking for A WHILE >.<
Thanks for such an insight.
If I have questions, can I ask them on here ?
Awesome blog you have here. The only REAL informative one I've found. Somewhere on the blog you mentioned "delivero" which is wicked :D
Nope, I'm not in Russia. I'm a high-school student in a 3rd world country, craving for a chance to make it to the 1st world. Russia is 2nd world, I know, but it's on good terms with my country 'really good' (you guess which M.E country that is -_- ) so chances of a such a chance are good :D and the climb later continues to the 1st world B)
Yeah, so, I gotta prepare myself and bookmark as many useful pages as I can find !
Thanks a lot, dude ! Keep posting ^^ !
I'll post my questions right away, would really appreciate an answer ^^ :
1- Say I want to get this specific Japanese book and I'm in Moscow, HOW is it possible if not through Amazon ? Are there any (English-German-Japanese-Chinese....etc) bookshops ? How can I order it ? Can a bookshop order it ? Will it cost much more that way ? I'm a bit fuzzy on this, do elaborate if you can !
2- How much has Russia embraced technology into daily life ? Like, is there free Wi-Fi where you go ?
3- Regarding online navigation, can you find, say, 90% of any kind of information you need ? How can you find the nearest KFC for example ?
4- KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, Dominoes Pizza, Pizza Hut.... etc
How good is food at these places ? Do you find it more "authentic" back in the UK ?
You already talked about Asian food restaurants, so I won't ask again :D
Thanks a bunch !
Hey dude, here's some answers for you:
1) If you don't order from Amazon (but you still can remember), a good option would be ozon.ru - kind of an Ebay rip off, but has a wide selection of stuff. Also, you can try ordering from biblioglobus, Russia's biggest book store bascially - http://www.bgshop.ru/
2) for moscow at least, wifi is pretty much everywhere. all the main coffee chains and decent restaurants have wifi. most Russians you see are glued to their phones, much like in the West
3) yeah, pretty much. you can use google or yandex maps (generally yandex maps are better for Russ, although im not crazy about them) and find what you want.
to find the local kfc, switch on your gps and and type in kfc in your map app and boom, it will show you where the nearest kfc is
4) the fast food is good, maybe even better than back home. americans i know especially comment how burger king here is way nicer. so yeah, 5/5 on fast food quality
good luck with your plan!
Awesome !
Thanks for the quick answer ! :D
i love your blog
Thanks!
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